Program and Meeting

To Attract Wildlife to your Landscape, Flowers are Necessary—but not Sufficient by Dennice Craig.

We are beginning to realize that North American wildlife is in deep trouble. Most don’t know that backyard gardeners might be the solution to what is hurting wildlife. We humans, in mass, have taken their ‘paradise’ and made it into a ‘parking lot.’ But we humans who own a tiny piece of undeveloped land, can turn our small portion of the biosphere into a complex habitat. In that space, wildlife will find refuge, build homes, and could survive. One caveat, all of us must do this—imagine that every backyard in Wichita and Mulvane, and Winfield, and Haysville, and Newton, etc. had a piece of functional habitat—not just a flower garden, but a home in which wild animals (insects and birds specifically) can flourish. Backyard gardeners will be the conservationists and preservationists who rescue North American wildlife from extinction. So, it is important to learn how to create habitat—a living landscape.

Dennice Craig worked as a high school teacher of psychology and sociology, then as Assistant Principal (the disciplinarian). She started as a backyard birdwatcher and became an Audubon Society member. After being a Sedgwick County Master Gardener volunteer her interest in feeding birds with native plants lead to an obsession with growing natives.

Programs will not be live-streamed this year, but you can see recordings after the live program on Youtube.